Chronicles of an Aging Gheorghie, Part Next

As I stockpile birthdays and medical conditions, I sometimes feel like a participant in the old social media exercise: Convey your age without using a number or a year. Something like, ‘My kindergarten class was cancelled the day after John F. Kennedy’s assassination,’ or ‘I need my glasses to clean my hearing aids so I can talk to the cardiologist about my pacemaker.’ 

The latest addition to the playlist came one recent afternoon when I looked up and thought I had a strand of hair or an eyelash in front of my left eye. After I brushed and attempted to clear it away, I re-opened my eye. The strand was still there. Rubbed again and re-opened. Still there. I looked up and down, side to side. 

The strand, which appeared to be a couple of small, squiggly, blurry lines, moved in whatever direction I focused. Didn’t impede my field of vision or clarity. Just a small bother, something that hadn’t been there minutes earlier. Initial anxiety gave way to a research rabbit hole of eyesight conditions – cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration – and where I learned that the term “floaters” doesn’t apply solely to fecal matter. 

As we age, the gel in our eyes can congeal in small spots or strands. They cast shadows on the retina, the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye, and those shadows appear as “floaters” in our vision. They’re more noticeable in light-colored settings, say if you’re looking at a clear blue sky or white paper. “Floaters” are fairly common past age 60, according to the National Institute of Health’s National Eye Institute, and sometimes will clear up on their own. However, they can also be a signal of more serious conditions. Multiple websites recommend reaching out to an optometrist ASAP for further testing. 

As it was the weekend and the local eye doc’s office was closed, me and my floaters were left to the Intertoobz, where I Google’d my way to all sorts of grim outcomes – invasive surgeries, eye patches, lengthy recoveries, vision loss. First thing Monday morning, I went to the doc’s office, told the receptionist what was up and asked if I could make an appointment. She checked the schedule book and said, if you can wait a few minutes, we can see you now. Huge score. 

Within an hour an assistant and an optometrist examined my eyes and were far more encouraged about my situation than I was when I walked in the door. No tears or ruptures. Vision is good. No treatment required. Come back in a couple months for a follow-up. 

The clinical term for my condition is Posterior Vitreous Detachment. Over time, the vitreous gel that fills the eye begins to liquify and shrink, pulling away from the retina, and can cause floaters or flashes (streaks of light, usually at the side of vision field). According to the American Society of Retina Specialists, if PVD progresses gradually and uniformly, symptoms are mild. Approximately 85 percent of people who experience PVD never develop complications, and in many cases floaters and flashes subside within three months. 

In the days after my exam, the floater has become a small, blurry oval that mostly bears left and that actually has a name among the retina crowd – a Weiss ring, named for the doctor who first described it in 1990. Again, field of vision and clarity are fine, which isn’t always the case, as people can experience multiple floaters or they can appear as cobwebs or dust or a swarm of insects and greatly interfere with eyesight. For me, it’s a tolerable peculiarity and one more descriptor on an old guy’s resume’.